My Critique

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Well, I've read the book, the whole book, and now I'm ready to give a critique. In short, Nuklear Age is a funny, yet tragically flawed book. That being said, don't expect any of what follows to be pretty, or even spoiler free.

You really should stop reading now. AND I DO MEAN NOW!

Okay, let me start with the narrative. For me, it just didn't work, and it was too haphazard. Brian's occasional interjections of himself, while fun at first, became annoying because of how out of place they were. A better format would be akin to the Powerpuff Girls narrator, or some other comic motif, and the narration really needed to be carried across the entirety of the whole book, not something done in spades.

Next, lets talk about the redundancies, and how very painful they can be. I'll name off some of the ones that I recall the Cheese/Spider people; the Danger: Names/Evil: Names/Project: Thingie; And the constant overflow of countless extras (Superhero & Villan).

The thing about redundancies is that if you eliminate one or the other, the problem ceases to exist. I would have prompted the elimination of either the cheese people, or the spider people.
And while I think the Danger: Names joke went on too long without any new ideas (Why no Danger: Pants? It seems so obvious!), it had much more merit to it than anything that was done with Genius & Menace (In hindsight, a (C) (TM) distinction between Genius & Menace would have worked far more appropriately.)
As for the excess of Villans/Superheros, you really either needed to incorporate them better into the plot, or just done without them entirely. I'm not going to get into this, but fer instance you could have easily done without the RPG warrior & the villans at school. Norman & the Stupid Villan group could have easily taken their places.
And one last thing, I absolutely HATED Shamus & Shiro. Not only were they practically carbon copies of Angus, but they were extra superheros which could have been done without entirely.

Let's talk about the technobabble & ensuing confusion. Brian could & should have done himself more justice by just sticking to describing things as they are seen. We, as readers don't need to know the pseudo-science or science behind events, and aside from Genius & Menace, neither do the characters. So when either Menace or Genius begins on a tirade of explanations, having a character or characters shut them up would be a good idea. All they'd be interested in knowing is ‘Will it work?' and ‘Why are you trying to explain it too me, just fire the gun already!'.
Also, it should be pointed out that if you can't contain your technobabble explanation to just one page, you really should go back and see what you can do to cut it down.

Finally, I'm going to address the ending. It was wrong, but not for the reasons of tearing everything apart. It was wrong because it was far too dependent on a God mythos that was introduced far too late into the book. It was wrong because the death of Rachel was far too sudden & on the heels of a comical bit, making it very out of place and out of context. It was wrong because the Epilogue had Rachel apparently alive for no reason whatsoever. It was wrong because it didn't even end with a Mostly Harmless non-fun funny ending.


And the fact that I'm putting up Mostly Harmless as a standard, just shows how badly the ending came off for me. Because I hated Mostly Harmless's ending. But given the humorous nature of the main brunt of the book, its completly out of context that you'd completely leave it out at the end.

I could go into more, but I think I've been cruel enough. I mean, I wanted to like this book, but sadly I did not. The above was an attempt to explain what I didn't like about the book, and how it could have been fixed. I don't know if this will help matters any, or what. I just felt the need to get it off my chest and said aloud.

Kevin C Sigmund

[Kurosen]

Odd that what you dislike is what everyone else tells me they like.

Shiro, Angus, and Shamus are members of the Dwarven Warrior Corps which, as we learn from a few hints, is apparently an organization started up by Angus some years ago that collects internationally renowned Dwarven Warriors and equips them to be heroes. It should be not be surprising that they wear similar outfits. No one complains when Green Laterns use a Green Latern.

Not sure what to say about the Danger/Scientific/Evil complaint. Everyone else who's mentioned it has expressed a compulsion to get a label maker.

The God Mythos is technically first hinted at within the first chapter and you get glimpses of Arel from the beginning. It (and Rachel's death) may appear to come out of nowhere as I hate it when a writer is trying to be coy and fails miserably because any moron can see his plot twist coming before it's even set up. It's annoyed some people that I managed to do the very thing they claim they want writers to do: keep them guessing. Some have mistaken it for sloppy writing, probably because, like me, they're used to knowing what's going to happen, especially when they aren't supposed to. So when something unexpected happens, it's "obviously" because the writer screwed up. Well, not in this case. There's 300 pages of following the rules all there just so that I can break them at one particular moment.

And, really, it doesn't come out of left field. All the hints are there and they're really obvious if you think about it. There's at least two lines in the book well before Nihel is ever introduced that either Sparky or Rachel will die, then we get to see Nihel who is never portrayed as giving a darn about human life. Then he meets some humans and kills them. Then he meets Rachel and Sparky. Her death is supposed to happen "too close" to a comical bit to make it hurt more. You can't say it was wrong because it didn't obey some unspoke rule of narrative -- the whole point of her death is that it broke that unspoken rule to shake up the reader.

The inclusion of gods, or at least revealing them so late, might make more sense if you're into superhero comics. I tried to avoid these things outright, but I couldn't help myself here. Basically, the whole book serves as a history-in-brief of superhero comics as seen through the life of Nuklear Man. At first everything is pretty wacky and the main hero is something of a cruel facist -- read early Superman comics, he's terrifying -- we even get a Silver Age with more overlycomplicated and somewhat ridiculous "scientific explainations" (Green Latern went from being essentially magical and unique to just one of thousands of Green Laterns in an interplanetary police force). After that the comics code gets slapped on them at the trial. There's the grim '80s with their darker and more complicated characters -- Superion being the son of Captain Liberty, hints that Genius and Menace aren't all they appear -- and Nuklear Man's origin is basically "retconned" which was an all too common device in the late '80s (Crisis on Infinite Earths) and early '90s (Age of Apocalypse, Heroes Reborn). That the implications of this retcon -- i.e. the introduction of Nihel and company -- nearly destroys the world, says something of my opinion for retcons. The final piece of comics history is the act of realizing that the book operates as a history. It's a self-aware look back with some commentary, the kind of the thing that you'd see much more of in the late '90s and early 21st century.

Also, Rachel is not alive at the end. It's a dream. The part where Sparky wakes up and refers to it as a dream is a hint. This confuses some people, probably because Sparky is alive at the end when we think he's dead, but there's instances throughout the book of his Field working of its own accord we find out it did something similar to save his life when Nihel shot him. Still, from Nuklear Man's perspective of the event, it appears that Sparky has been killed so he flips out.

Sorry you didn't like it. You can probably get your money back if you act fast.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Well, I won't deny that maybe my standards are higher than most. Still this isn't the worst book I've ever read, that distinction goes to Grunts, a story of Orcs who find 21st Century Military gear and act like well, Military folk and uh...

Its evil, and that's all I can say.

Still, the whole birthday card (that comes in the first chapter, so I'm not even going to bother editing this text), doesn't seem to gel with what we learn of Nuklear Man's father at the end of the book

Also, KatKat seems oddly absent from the ending of the book. Considering he managed to land a plane, with no wings. As well as the other occasional odd things KatKat has done, you'd think he'd have at least survived the catastrophe. So what happened to him, eh?

[Kurosen]

maybe my standards are higher than most.

They don't seem "higher" so much as off to the side somewhere. I'm not sure what you wanted, but your comments come down to nitpicking on minor matters of personal taste. That you specifically cite disliking characters, events, gags, and other elements that so many other people have told me they loved is confusing.

The birthday card: Perhaps it was sent by another agent? Perhaps to be explored in the sequel? Or maybe it goes back to the retcon thingie. Who's to say!

As for Katkat, he's around. Just 'cause he's not mentioned doesn't mean he's dead. Same for Shiro and some others.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

What I meant by high standards, is that I'm starting to get set in my ways, and I'm starting to understand what I like & don't like about a story. I like to think I'm not so fuddy as to be absolutely stuck in my ways, but this book hit a few too many pet peevs for me to fully enjoy much of it. Had the book ended earlier, say by the death of Superion, I doubt my critique would have been nearly as harsh.

But as it was the story went on just a bit too long, and finishing the book became a chore moreso than a source of entertainment. And this critique, coming right on the heels of that, I now understand why I was so negative.

So now I'll remove my foot from my mouth, and let it be.

SW KC